"Shut the fuck up, Chase," I snarled, then threw another warning glare at Zed. "Get in the damn car before I leave you here."
Zed's expression was pure venom, but he reluctantly did as he was told. He slid into the driver's side, the stubborn fuck, and slammed the door shut as I swung back around to face my nemesis.
"I may not be able to kill you yet," I told him with cold violence in my voice, stalking closer to where he swayed slightly on his feet. "But I have zero qualms about hurting you. Remember that senator's son you tortured for three days over my sixteenth birthday? The one your dad told you to use your imagination on?" I cocked my head to the side, waiting for him to find the memory in that fucked up brain of his.
He gave a wicked smile. "How could I forget? Kid sobbed like a baby as we cut him up. It was a shame he died so quick."
I gagged internally when he said we. But I'd helped, hadn't I? Back then, I'd thought Chase was my entire fucking world. No matter how much he hurt me, I still did everything he asked of me.
Forcing aside the guilt, I gave Chase a cruel smile, the same sort of smile I'd seen his mother use a hundred times before I killed her. "What was his name again? Thomas something?"
Chase inclined his head. "Thomas Sanderson III. Little turd. Father was so angry when he realized we'd accidentally killed him."
I nodded. "That's right. Well. Remember how many creative ways you made him hurt?" I reached out and wrapped my hand around the hilt of my knife, which still protruded from his shoulder. "I promise you, Chasey-baby, I'll make that look like child's play if you push me." I wrenched my knife out, making sure to twist it brutally on the way.
Chase barely even made a sound, just grinned at me like I'd offered him flowers.
Unnerved, I decided not to push my luck any further and beat a quick retreat back to Zed's car. Zed said nothing as I slammed the door closed behind me. He just revved the engine and squealed out of the parking lot. We barely avoided flattening Chase's sorry, bleeding ass, too. More's the pity.
22
My bloody fingers shook so badly that I could barely work my phone as Zed sped through the streets of Shadow Grove, but I still managed to send the message I was trying to sort out.
"Dare," Zed said after several minutes of silence.
"Not yet," I bit back. I was still too firmly gripped by my fear and anxiety and the looming, suffocating presence of my worst nightmares.
He puffed out a short sigh, his busted knuckles oozing as he gripped the steering wheel tighter. "Don't fucking shut me out," he growled, anger and frustration threaded through his voice. "We're in this together. Always have been, always will be."
A bitter laugh escaped my lips. "Sure didn't feel like we were in it together when Chase punished me for kissing you by forcing a near-lethal dose of PCP down my throat. I was pretty fucking alone the nights he waited until I was terrified of my own breathing, then let his father and uncles use me for sport." Panic clawed at my throat, making it hard to breathe, and I desperately tried to take calming breaths. These confessions weren't news to Zed, though. He'd seen Chase's dirty little tapes showcasing all that and more. Those recordings exposed the worst of his abuse, which he always executed in one revolting room of horrors.
Zed was about to pull over, I could sense it, so I gave him a hard glare with the last dregs of my strength. "Just fucking drive, Zed," I snarled. "I'll be fine in a minute."
He continued driving, but he was far from ready to let it go. Not this time.
"You're so far from fine it's sickening," he spat, pressing his foot harder to the floor and making the scenery outside my window blur. Despite his tone, I knew it wasn't me he was disgusted with. It was himself for not knowing what was happening to me behind closed doors.
That, of all things, helped me claw my way back out of the years’ old, stale fear. I took a couple more calming breaths, and then inch by inch, I forced my body to stop fucking shaking.
Finally, I reached out and placed my hand over Zed's where it gripped the gear shift. "Just get us home," I whispered, all traces of my anger gone. "You need patching up."
His hand twisted under mine, linking our fingers together. He shot me a quick, worried look, then jerked a nod. He didn't say anything more, but the way he raised my hand to his lips and kissed my bloody knuckles told me we weren't even close to done on this topic.
The house was silent when we pulled back in. Cass was still gone and Lucas was at his mom's and somehow I was glad for the privacy. Zed and I... Fuck. We were a mess.
"Go and wash up," I ordered him in a quiet voice as we walked through the foyer. "I'll get the medical kit."
He nodded and silently headed up the stairs toward his bedroom, where he could clean up and get clean clothes.
I made my way to the kitchen, pausing on a stool long enough to unbuckle my shoes and kick them away. Then off went my gun holster and knife sheaths. I didn't need to be armed inside Zed's home—our home—and if I did, there were more weapons hidden around the house than I could count.
Inside the butler's pantry I pulled out the medium-sized first aid kit and snagged a bottle of whiskey from the bar. I got the feeling we'd need both.
Upstairs, Zed had left his bedroom door ajar and the lights off. But the sound of the shower running and the light pouring from the en suite doorway pointed me in the right direction. Sucking up my shredded courage, I pushed open the bathroom door and plonked my supplies down on the marble vanity.
"Probably not an amazing idea to shower with an open wound, idiot," I commented, opening the lid of the first aid kit but grimacing when I saw the state of my hands.
Zed's blurry form shifted in the fogged-up shower behind me, the motion in the mirror too hard to resist looking. "It's barely a scratch; I've had worse," he replied. "Besides, I wanted to wash his stink off my skin."
I sighed. "Can't argue with that." Pushing the medical kit aside, I thoroughly soaped up my hands in the sink and scrubbed all the blood off them. Between Chase and Mad Dog, it took some vigorous scrubbing to get them properly clean. Next I grabbed a washcloth and wiped the splatters from my arm and forehead. What a mess.
The shower shut off, and my breath stilled in my chest.
"Hand me that towel?" Zed asked, reaching a hand out of the shower in the general direction of his towel rack.
I did as he asked, slightly disappointed that he wasn't just going to step out all naked and dripping. Then again, he was respecting my boundaries, knowing full well how hard my walls had slammed back into place, which I appreciated.
Zed stepped out with the towel wrapped low around his hips, and I almost swallowed my tongue as I met his eyes in the mirror. Maybe my walls weren't as solid as I'd thought.
The rapidly spreading red stain on the top of his towel jerked me out of my trance, and I spun around to inspect his wound.
"It's just a scratch," he said again, despite the fact that his three-inch-long "scratch" was still bleeding freely.
I rolled my eyes and patted the vanity countertop. "Sit here so I can get a better look."
He did as he was told, hopping up with the towel still tucked securely around his body, and I flicked the harsh makeup light on. The light was why I'd brought the medical kit into his bathroom instead of the bedroom. If I needed to stitch him up, the offensive brightness would give me the best light.